The World of Sales is Calling You

One of our favorite things to do on Sunday is read the newspaper. We read the local paper as well as the New York Times. Often I’ll read the employment stories to see what others are saying.

In the NY Times there was an article in the “Jobs” section that started with, “It’s not easy being 20-something these days. . . . the job market is unwelcoming.”

In one of the papers I noticed a help wanted ad. Here are some excerpts and the gist of the ad – Full time position working the night shift starting at 10 p.m. You must be bilingual, have expert computer skills in both Mac and PC as well as Quark applications. You also have to have superior organizational skills, be flexible and work in a face-paced environment that is deadline-driven. You have to be a self-starter, work with little supervision, and have an overwhelming desire to succeed.

I thought to myself that the person who applies for this position must be very intelligent (I have enough trouble with English – much less with ANOTHER language, too), be a top-notch performer and spent years perfecting his or her computer skills. I read the ad to Mary Kay and asked her how much she thought a job of this magnitude would pay. She guessed much higher than the real answer: “This position starts at $10.50 per hour.”

Whew. $10.50?

$10.50 – and how much schooling did it take to do this? How many hours of working until a person can master Quark?

Then I thought about sales. Consider this:

I just went to www.collegerecruiter.com and entered the key word “sales”. There are 206,702 jobs. And remember, this is in a job market that is “unwelcoming.” What’s that? You’re not trained in sales?

Mary Kay, when taking a commission-only position in sales for the first time years ago, practically memorized Tom Hopkins’ How to Master the Art of Selling. Interestingly, when I put together training programs for new sales reps . . . years before I met Mary Kay . . . that book was required reading.

Start devouring books on sales. Go to Amazon.com. They don’t have to be new books. Just readable. Maybe dog-eared pages will even help you. You can buy How to Master the Art of Selling on Amazon for as low as a penny (yes I said PENNY) for a used book.

Choose Neil Rackham’s Spin Selling (Hardcover) for $20.00. Next, buy Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling for $7.00 (used copy). Then buy How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie for $4.75. Buy the hardcover version of Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking for $10.75. By way, Mary Kay devoured the Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale books, too. (The others weren’t written yet.)

Next, go to www.jgsalespro.com and sign up for Jeff Goldberg’s newsletter. He is the best at telephone prospecting I’ve ever seen. While you are at it, go to www.sellingpower.com and watch some of Gerhard’s interviews – especially the interview with Howard Stevens entitled “How Hiring is Changing” http://www.sellingpower.com/video/ . Howard has said that more people will go into the workforce and have a job in sales that all other college majors combined. With that, don’t forget to get a subscription of Selling Power.

Do I say all of these things for the sake of hiring sales reps at Valpak?

Indirectly. It will take hard work. It will take patience. It will take dedication. It will take the ability to ignore the word “no”. But, for $42.51 (plus shipping) you can get the books that can help propel you to a world that you could have never imagined existed.

Still not convinced? Spend the $42.51 and read the books and see if you are willing to embrace the lessons taught in those books. Then apply for a job with Valpak. You will be the kind of person I want to hire. If you then go to work with one of our offices, I’ll reimburse your $42.51 tenfold.

Of course, the other 206,701 employers will be envious!